Sky High

It's all about one-world government now, with open borders and free emigration to better nations, but where are people going to emigrate to if the world becomes run by one government and that government turns sour?

Correct, Russ, and although I'm a tender spring-chicken of a little under 60 myself, I still grew up in an era when the Second World War wasn't that long over and its repercussions still echoed loudly. I read comic-books in which the story-lines were primarily of battles within WW2, many featuring colourful and attractive representations of combatting fighter-planes, very reminiscent of what we have in EAW. What I experienced must be relatively more intense for those of an age-group closer to the war. We're now in an era where many seem to resent the very freedoms many sacrificed their lives for, and when patriotism is considered a negative value. Our type of game would not have the same attraction for people who think like that. There are many also who do not think like that, of course, but they're attracted to more visually appealing games such as IL-2 and its more modern offspring and good luck to them. This game will inevitably die with its present enthusiasts, but that's the way of things, isn't it? Anyhow, that's already too much philosophy!

It's a big ask to expect people, who have already given us much more of their blood and treasure than anyone could ever have reasonably expected, to devote yet more of their current lives to write up documentation for a body of people that doesn't appear to exist, and is increasingly unlikely to. On the other hand, EAW has already been built up to be perhaps very near full potential and is unquestionably now, with all the planesets and terrains, a package sufficient to entertain this punter, at least, for a lifetime if the hardware allows. Perhaps the game has very nearly reached maturity? There may be little tweaks that are possible, but currently the AI, the FMs, the weaponry and the details such as the groundobjects (which our two experts are still improving) and terrains seem close to optimum and altering them is no guarantee of improvement. Maturity doesn't imply death-people will continue to play games such as EAW and BoBII long after they cease to be modified. It's just that, with the exception of the on-line flyers, there won't be much public interaction, which in itself is a pity, of course. I'm very happy with what we've got. In a world that little respects true quality, as opposed to fickle flash, it is almost incredible that we are still having this conversation after so many years and that we now have such a wonderful game. Maybe, in the future, a prince will come, who knows programming and coding and other voodoo and who is willing to assume the mantle for further development of EAW, such as it might be. In that case, your information base will prove invaluable.

It has come to my notice that many of the engine and machine-gun sounds in my modded FE2 install are no longer working. In the case of many of the engine sounds, many that are seem excessively quiet. There seem to be so many planes involved, I don't know where to begin and I don't seem to be able to restore missing machine-gun sounds, at all. Has anyone any ideas or experienced this?

Great concept. Could one make square or oblong units that could be conjoined to create towns and cities of varying sizes, possibly with irregular units on the edges to minimise the overall excessively square outline?

Just wish to add that the wide range of sounds really clarifies the depth of variety and realism that VonS' mod lends to FE. For such a small community, we are very lucky to have so much talent available to get the best out of this game. Those that are unaware of the level to which FE/FE2 has been taken are missing out.

Von S, thank you and have pity on my stupidity. I neglected to put the new soundlist.ini in the Flight folder, messing everything up and quite spectacularly. How do you stay so patient with the likes of me!?

Update: on further examination, I notice that many of the engine sounds described in the dataini's don't match the names of the soundfiles in my Sounds folder. So some renaming should sort that. The machine-gun sounds issue seems more complicated. Some of the various mg sound files in my sounds folder don't seem to be getting read at all.

SagginB's terrain looks so well and so realistic that I'll put up with the possibility of some of the targets being inappropriately-placed. However, in my first comparison, with Corneuilles (I think it was) airfield, the objects seemed to fit well enough. I need to investigate further.

Postscript: I did a small experiment, launching a groundstart in the same airfield in both Default ETO and ETO2015 terrains, each with SagginB's HR textures and there were far more and varied ground objects in the case of ETO2015. So, it seems the targets do show up, giving me the best of both worlds. Your 'UseSeasons' file is a handy one, indeed, Jel.

Jel, in my version of 1.60, I have installed SagginB's fine 512x512, 24bit terrains into the Seasons folder. In my ETO2015 (Jel2018) folder, i have placed your UseSeasons file (which I got in your AoE1.29 download), which gives me SagginB's terrain with Ray's ETO2015. My question is, will Ray's targets show up in this terrain?

The windscreen is absolutely essential. Without it, the cigarette might go out.

No, they are two entirely different sims. If you look through Lima's recent reviews of both games, you can see where he has explored the strengths and weaknesses of both.

Your screenshots are extraordinarily close to the real. BoBII truly is a simulation, in the broad sense, at least.

Anyone remember Rowans' Flying Corps? Those high clouds remind me of it.

Seany, I don't think they were ever released on 'hardware'. I think only the original game was. Perhaps, a download manager would help-I think they maintain the integrity of partial downloads, even in the event of a broken link?

FE Gold and FE2 can both be downloaded from the Thirdwire website.

I've found the TypesIni.

Gentlemen, I have tried to install this mod, but I am stumped. Can anyone tell me where I might find this 'TypesIni'?

Thanks to seany for reviving this thread, as I completely missed it first time 'round. And of course thanks to Geezer and Stephen, but that has become a regular and very pleasant habit! I expect this game to become even more perilous now.

It's unfortunate that swastikas are unavailable, even through the use of mods. Rather irrational, hypocritical virtue-signalling as if this kind of censorship ranks as the equivalent of the efforts of the real human beings who risked their skins fighting against what this symbol represents. Is it surprising that such confused priorities should lead to other errant design decisions? When political correctness takes precedence over historical accuracy, it is inevitable that the latter will also be disregarded elsewhere.

DBW needs IL-2 1946 version 4.10. When it is installed on top of this version, it should work very well. BAT goes on top of version 4.12. I say this because you mentioned 4.13.4, and neither afore-mentioned pack will work right on the latter. There are other options for 4.12, the VPModpack and HSFX 7. These are easier to install than BAT, I would think-having said that, I don't have BAT myself. I actually use HSFX 7 for 4.12 and DBW for 4.10. There are more comprehensive packages, but I find these very stable and they load up very quickly. There is still a lot of content in both.

BoBII version 2.01 would be quite primitive and undeveloped. Your workaround of a Windows 7 secondary boot seems the best solution, to me.

Don, what are the advantages of Windows 10?

Rusty, I don't have Win 10, but I have heard of few people having difficulty with it and IL-2 1946. Other older games seem to have various incompatibilities. Perhaps you should look through 33Lima's recent reviews of BoBII. Not only are they very entertaining in themselves, but he describes how he installed a seperate Win 7 boot into his Win 10 pc at very little cost, enabling him to have the best of both worlds.